A content-rich information fact and opinion blog that advocates, educates, professes, affirms, defends and furnishes facts while restoring truth to the Middle East narrative about the legitimate and sovereign nation of Israel. On the internet with news and opinions from the right since 2003, and on forum boards, blasting Arabists, neo-nazis, Islamists and other Jew-haters, since 1999.

July 12, 2007

Edwin Mirvish, the theater producer and flamboyant Canadian businessman known as "Honest Ed" because of his popular Toronto discount store, has died at age 92.

Mirvish died Wednesday at St. Michael's Hospital, his family announced. Mirvish's Toronto theater career began in 1963, when he purchased and saved from demolition the stately Royal Alexandra Theatre. He also bought and restored the Old Vic, one of England's most famous theaters, and with his son, David Mirvish, built the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto in 1993.

But before he became a producer, Mirvish was a savvy - and shrewd -business man.

He opened his discount emporium in 1948 at Bathurst andBloor - the heart of Toronto's immigrant district. His first newspaper ad read: "Our building is a dump! Our service is rotten! . . . But. ..!!! Our prices are the lowest in town!"He once said he named his store Honest Ed's because "it was so ridiculous. As soon as you claim to be honest, everybody gets suspicious."

In 1962, Mirvish, who acknowledged he knew nothing about theater, bought the Royal Alexandra and spent nearly $475,000 restoring the1907 theater to its former glory. Twenty years later, he purchased the Old Vic, the legendary London theater where Olivier, Gielgud, Redgrave and Richardson once performed. He sold the property in 1998.

Mirvish was also well-known to Toronto residents for his generosity.

At his annual July 24 birthday bash, to which everyone was welcome, there were free hotdogs, rides and cake. And each Christmas, people would line up overnight outside Honest Ed's for a free turkey and fruitcake. Born in 1914 in Colonial Beach, Va., Mirvish came to Toronto in 1923where he and his family lived above their downtown Dundas Street grocery. He was 15 when his father died and he dropped out of school to support his family.

Over the years, Mirvish picked up honorary degrees and awards, including the Order of Canada and the Commander of the Order of the British Empire."It's wonderful to go from Dundas Street to Buckingham Palace, but what is really wonderful is to be lucky enough to live in a country where this is possible," Mirvish said in 1989 before he was presented the honor by Queen Elizabeth II.

Besides his son, Mirvish is survived by his wife, Anne, and a sister.

A funeral service will be held Friday at Beth Tzedec Synagogue in Toronto.

Hey, Who's the Guy With the Sword?

Attention, Readers

Attention civilized nations:

Join us here at Smooth Stone along with other people of good conscience and put an end to the brutal terror of the Palestinian Authority complicit in the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Jews from their homeland of Israel.

Our goal is to educate the world in order to place intense pressure upon the entity calling itself "Palestine" to respect the human rights of the Jewish people who have returned to their restored homeland.

Jews are entitled to self-determination, to live freely in their homeland. Zionism is just as valid as Palestinianism, but even moreso because unlike the political "Arabian nation", the Zionist movement to "Palestine/the Land of Israel" represents a RETURN - not an invasion.

Let's face facts.

We are told that there is a difference between extremist Islam and peaceloving normal Islam.

Doesn't this mean that extremist Islam is the norm and normal Islam is extremely rare?

On Nov. 29, 1947 the United Nations General Assembly voted to legitimize the sovereignty of the restored state of Israel.

If the 1.3 million Israeli Arabs are a model of peaceful coexistence, why are the 250,000 Jews living in Judea, Samaria, and the Golan Heights an obstacle to peace?

If the uprooting of Arab communities within the Green Line constitutes a blatant human rights violation, why is the uprooting of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria viewed as a contribution to peace?

There is not, nor has there ever been, a distinct "Palestinian" culture or language.

Further, there has never been a Palestinian state governed by Arab Palestinians in history. Nor was there ever a serious Arab-Palestinian national movement, until 1964, which was three years *before* the Arabs of "Palestine" lost the West Bank [Judea and Samaria] and Gaza as a result of attacking Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War (which the Arabs started).

Even the original so-called leader of the "Palestinian" people, Yasser Arafat, was Egyptian.

In short, the so-called Arab "Palestinians" are a manufactured people. They are a people with no history and no authenticity whose sole purpose for existence is to destroy the Jewish State.

It's ethnocentric to claim that only a certain ethnic group has rights to own land, as is the claim made by the Arabs. Why are Arabs the only ones entitled to self-determination?

What would have happened if Jews had repopulated their homeland, and the Arabs opened up their arms and expressed brotherhood as their response to Europe's genocide of European Jews?

It would have proven that it was not Zionism that caused this ongoing conflict, but the pan-Arabic racist reaction towards it.

Terror is not something one learns to live with. It is something which the Israel and US governments are obligated to completely destroy. No decent government should sit down and negotiate with murderers.

"We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement...We will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home." -- The Emir Fayzal to Felix Frankfurter of the American Zionist delegation, Paris Peace Conference, 1919. Reprinted in "The Arab Israeli Conflict: Documents Vol III, pages 42-49, John Moore, editor.

Smooth Stone provides a plethora of facts, data, statistics and links to other important sites.

Smooth Stone corroborates the actual facts against the mythology generated from Arab governments, Arab news sources as well as from Arabist and left-wing media sources.

Please view our archives and sidebar for more information.

Please email if you have any questions.

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